President Trump announced Monday that Ukraine and Russia have agreed to stop attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure, one day after saying Kyiv was “hurting the world” with its strikes on Moscow’s diesel facilities.
“Ukraine has agreed not to hit Russian Energy targets,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Russia has agreed to do, likewise! The World’s Diesel price rise is mostly caused by the Russia/Ukraine War, not Iran.”
Ukraine has for months been targeting Russia’s oil and gas industry with long-range strikes, prompting fuel rationing across the country and causing Moscow to ban diesel exports in July, removing supplies from a global market already grappling with a reduction in petroleum shipments through the Strait of Hormuz due to the US war with Iran.
The average nationwide price of a gallon of diesel fuel stood at $6.23 Monday morning, the highest on record, according to AAA.
“Mr. [Volodymyr] Zelensky has to do one thing. He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia,” Trump told reporters on the sidelines of the Irish Open golf tournament, which was held at his Doonbeg club, in reference to Ukraine’s president.
“We spoke to Mr. Zelenskyy about it. There are plenty of other targets. Don’t hit diesel fuel, because that’s hurting, that’s hurting the world,” Trump added.
There was no immediate response from Kyiv to Trump’s statement.
According to a report published Friday by the International Energy Agency, net exports of diesel and gasoil from the Gulf countries in August stood at “just over a quarter” of what they were before the war on Iran began in February.
“Disruptions to Russia’s refining system and a near-halt to product exports following intensified Ukrainian attacks have compounded these losses,” the IEA wrote. It added that in February, combined next exports of diesel and gasoil from the Gulf and Russia “accounted for almost 45% of global seaborne trade.”
Kyiv says Russia’s oil industry both funds and directly fuels Moscow’s four-and-a-half-year-old invasion.
Russia has ramped up its air campaign against Ukraine in recent weeks, using ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones to pierce Ukraine’s defenses. Moscow’s attacks have targeted Ukraine’s power grid ahead of winter in what officials say is meant to demoralize civilians.
Two people were killed and 14 more wounded near an oil and industrial hub in Russia’s Tatarstan, according to local officials, while Ukrainian authorities reported on Russian drones pummeling the Black Sea port of Odesa and starting a fire near a border crossing with Poland.
The two Russian civilians died after a drone slammed into a tree near their parked car in the city of Nizhnekamsk, according to the office of regional head Rustam Minnikhanov. Nizhnekamsk houses a key cluster of oil refineries and other industrial plants. Mayor Radmir Belyaev said that a fire had broken out at an unspecified “enterprise.”
Ukraine also claimed to have hit a major oil refinery in Slavyansk-on-Kuban, in Russia’s Krasnodar region near Crimea. The Defense Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU) agency said its drones struck a key oil processing unit and the refinery’s tank farm overnight into Sunday.
Krasnodar authorities said the strike on “an enterprise” in Slavyansk-on-Kuban injured three people and damaged an oil pipeline.
Russian forces shot down 389 Ukrainian drones during the night, Russia’s defense ministry said Sunday.
In Ukraine, at least nine people were injured in a “massive” Russian nighttime attack on Odesa, according to Serhii Lysak from the city’s military administration. Odesa is home to Ukraine’s main port hub on the Black Sea and has faced sustained drone and missile strikes, with Kyiv accusing Moscow of trying to choke off its exports.
With Post wires
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